Plus this thoroughly "postmodernist" essay (etc) describes the origins of the power and control seeking perceptual strait-jacket in which we are now all trapped---Webers Iron Cage or Newtons Shackles (Blake).

1. http://www.adidabiennale.org/curation/index.htm

The thus featured Art provides a vision of what lies beyond and Always Already prior to our fragmentary point of view---quite literally the World As Conscious Light

Related essays by the author on the World as Conscious Light---which is what we always already ARE.

1. http://www.dabase.org/dht6.htm
2. http://www.dabase.org/christmc2.htm

Altogether the author points out that we have hardly even begun to consider the revolutionary cultural implications of Einsteins famous equation E=MC2

Plus a related reference by another author Art and Physics--which is also about Art and E=MC2 and culture too.

1. http://www.artandphysics.com

Human beings are rational at least in that they intend by their actions to cause an effect in the future, even if it’s the immediate future, that they will find more satisfactory than without the action.

This statement self-evidently describes all voluntary human action, and in this limited sense all human action is rational.

The means man chooses to achieve his chosen end may be factually mistaken. He may do a rain dance as a means of making crops grow. He may apply leeches as a cure for anaemia. He may socialize capital goods as a means to achieve higher productivity of capital.

Science cannot say whether the given end value is good or bad. But it can say whether the means chosen to achieve it is suitable for the attainment, or the efficient attainment of the chosen end.

The overwhelming majority of people want increased material welfare for themselves and posterity. Even the professed hermits and ascetics make concessions that don’t agree with their rigid principles.

For us humans, society is the great means to the ends we value most. Isolated we can never hope to achieve even a fraction of our potential through society.

All the political parties and all their different platforms purport to aim at the highest material welfare for the majority of citizens. No-one says ‘Vote for me and suffer greater poverty and misery’.

Therefore whatever their apparent differences, all different political programs are agreed on the ends, and the difference of opinion is on whether the means chosen are efficient to achieve the ends.

“Man has only one tool to fight error: reason.” Ludwig von Mises

The English Language is the language of the law, and the basic skills of parsing and analysis are central to its application. Thomas Paine, first proposed an Age of Reason. He argues that the Church and the State are a single corrupt institution which does not act in the best interests of the people—both must be radically altered: ( Wikipedia). Today in Australia not only is the Church the State, its priests are lawyers, and Archbishop French, an atheist by deed if not word. Only an atheist can condone one man judging another as the High Court does.

For sixty years, since Menzies became Prime Minister, the State and Church have been merged, under a State controlled Priesthood of lawyers. Instead of free and unimpeded access to the High Court Menzies introduced the very first restrictive trade practice, in Order 58 rule 4 subrule 3, High Court Rules 1952, so that without consent from a Registrar/Priest no one can access the High Court as of right. This same control by State registered and appointed priests of access to court, was continued in the High Court Rules 2004 by Regulation 6.6 and 6.7, and for the Federal Court of Australia by s 39 Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 and Order 46 rule 7A Federal Court Rules.

To merge Church and State the Christian system, adopted by the English as law, had to be neutered, and worship of nine separate Parliaments introduced. In them delegates supposedly operating in the public interest purport to make laws. These laws are contradictory, capricious, unreasonable and often downright frivolous, vexatious, and illegal.

The Christian system was designed to ensure that all law was subject to a higher authority. Both fact and law was triable in a proper “court” comprised of a Justice, a jury, and two adversaries. Whether a law was legal, was a question of fact and a triable issue. Like their Church predecessors, lawyer priests decide what is allowed to be examined. By reason the English rejected this concept. A “court” was where a law was parsed and analysed, confirmed or rejected.

Good thought provoking article.
It is clear we are suffering from a social disconnect. Unlike Clickcraftsman I think the language is appropriate. Groupthink occurs in both committees and whole populations.
Humans have had thousands of years to play with many, many paradigms and I believe the "virtue" of any one paradigm should be measured by it's results.
"Common sense" is a much abused term but it gives a clue as to the best approach. A good paradigm can be common to all people. A good paradigm does not fall apart when new knowledge is gained. A good paradigm leads to more freedom rather than less.
The scientific *method* is open, repeatable and evidence based. If it cannot be repeated by anyone, anywhere then it isn't real science.
Despite runners usual inane comments...the scientific philosophy has achieved more in the last 200 years than humans managed in the previous 10,000 years.
Medical science alone: think dentistry, surgery, anti-biotics...all the result of a measly few scientists yet enjoyed by millions of people. Science has been shown to be the best long-medium term investment of *any* investment. Quite simply, the science paradigm is responsible for the modern world, yet is barely understood by those that suckle from it's teat.
Maybe we need to get all the anti-science folks into one country as an experiment. See how long they last before God shows them how silly they are pretending ignorance and hubris will replace knowledge and competence. (Actually this is already happening...and I am *so* glad to live in a secular country!)

One of the problems about writing an article for OLO is that it is not known what the comments are going to be. This often means that points that commentators find important are missed. Here are a few points that seemed to have been missed.
1. The title 'Age of Reason' came about as a play on the scientific age of reason heralded in by Sir Isaac Newton that lasted until Maxwell Plank 'discovered' quanta, and science at a fundamental level became one big probability.
2. In using the word paradigm I did differentiate between the social science use and hard science use. Many commentators seem blur the line between the two.
3. I did not intend that some readers would take my article to mean that reason meant divorcing emotion. Before anyone does anything they need to decide what they want. That is an emotional decision. The second part is to work out how to get what is wanted. That requires reason. I hope that the 'reason' part is where we are failing, because if war, greed poverty are the human race want I am resigning now.
Of course someone had to try to make this a religious debate. I have a deep sense of an unknowable force that is ever present in my live. How I relate to this is my affair and mine alone. How anyone relates or not is their affair and theirs alone. I do not need or want anyone to call this 'God' and then claim to be Gods lawyer telling me how I should behave.
Some two hundred years state and religion where separated in the Western world. As a result the Inquisition lost the ability to torture people and burn them at the stake.
The USA in the last eight years should serve as a warning of what happens when the state and religion get entangled again. Guentamino Bay, special rendition etc.
The 'Christian' world has largely separated state and religion. If Islam can do the same we might get somewhere towards bringing peace to the world.

Davly- my heart goes out to you. Many of the OLO responses validate your third point- they decide what they want to on the basis of their immediate emotional response and then cobble together some rationale for their reactions. This is what I call prejudice. I thought that part of the foundation for "The Age of Reason" was that observations are related to previous observations and the presumed causal relationships between those observations. From these observations, possible viable options for courses of actions are inferred, then, and only then, are values (based on emotions) invoked to choose a desirable option for action that has some likelihood of success.

It was more likely Heisenberg, not Planck, who shifted the game from strict determinism to probabilism (if that is a valid name for the quantum mechanical paradigm)with his Uncertainty Principle. Nonetheless, probabilities do not invalidate causality- one can always (in principle) construct a causal chain- just that prediction is fuzzy these days.

The definition of paradigms is still being debated. This is to be expected as most words take a few hundred years to acquire a "strict" meaning. By that time, they are usually no longer interesting.